My Jointer was a once in a lifetime purchase..(Rockwell 6"..purchased new in the mid 60's...) and to be honest pretty heavely used...over the 40 odd years I have owned it...
BUT
IF I were buying a new jointer I would value a longer bed lenght over extra cutting width.... 90 percent of the time all I need is 6 inches...but I do get "PO'ed) the 10 percent of the time I need an 8 inch cut...
But truthfully when I edge glue up table tops or panels etc very rarely do I want to glue up poieces wider then 4-5 inches anyway...
In short...bed lenght is more useful (to me, my work, and my needs ) yours may vary... ..
I don't think I've ever hit a nail or even any grit with my jointer - I filter them out with the thickness planer first. By the time I go near the jointer, the boards are pretty clean.
Gritty bark is another use for the hand planer. I don't care what I hit with that thing.
(Friend of mine once had a mouse nest under his jointer head - you don't want to know the rest)
If possible, find a woodworking store(Woodcraft as an example) and go see a 8"(DJ-20) sitting next to a 6"(Pro series) and that will answer any question you have about which to get.
The difference is beyond description.
Dave wrote:
It seems to me that a jointer is a once-in-a-lifetime purchase.
Not really. A Freud 6" knife set at Amazon.com is $19.75 and the 8" is $25.46. Less than $6 difference. On the other hand, by moving the fence around to distribute wear, you go longer between knife sharpenings on the 8" machine.
Maybe think about buying a good used 8" machine? Then you're paying the resale price, which it should hold indefinitely. Figure on new knives (have the old ones sharpened and kept as back-up), maybe a drive belt, and you're in business.
Folks can debate and chew the fat over this one for a long time, but the bottom line is space, cost and functionality. Some folks don't have the space, some do. Some have financial limitations/other responsibilities and have to be more responsible in spending, and some folks simply don't need an 8" jointer for type of work they like to do and the occasional +6" wide piece that comes up.
I had a 6"er for 7 or 8 years, and from time to time would resist ripping wide boards down, and face joint 8" wide boards by hand with a #5 to get them into the planer, and did just fine. I happened to have the cash, and bought a DJ-20 last fall and I've never looked back. I've put about 5 to 600 bd ft (maybe more) through it so far, and face jointed some 7" wide cherry just last night, and am still thinking to myself "what a great machine this is."
Take your pick, whether its Grizz, Delta, Jet, Powermatic, General International or some other brand, you generally get a more powerful machine, longer beds, more stable platform, better adjustment mechanisms - it all adds up to a better user experience and a bit more flexibility. Incremental costs on blades or sharpening, well, I can't get excited about that all too much. If you go larger, you will likely not regret it. For me it is a once in a lifetime buy, as I won't sell it while I'm alive. When I give it up for the afterlife there'll be one hell of a garage sale!!
Mutt
Any ideas out there? Can you do almost as much on a 6" machine as an
Almost everything he says is accurate. I've face jointed a bunch of eight inch board on a six inch jointer. It's like using a hand plane. You look for the high spots and cut them down. Flip the board and do it again. It's a kludge. Don't underestimate your ability to get flat board by this method if it's all that's available to you. I can afford the 8". I'm low on space, I wonder how long it will be before I want something bigger. (10", 14") I'll probably get an eight inch. Envy? Convenience? My point is... don't let anyone convince you that if you have only a six inch jointer you dasn't touch a board wider than six inches. Search the web- the techniques are posted. Save yourself some sweat and buy the eight inch if it's practical but don't let anyone convince you that you're condemned to ripping everything to six inches if you don't spring for the wider jointer.
OK, to start off, I am a newbie and probably don't know what I'm talking about here. But just doing the math, isn't an 8" the same as two 4" jointers? I suspect a lot of 4" and less sized lumber is run through a jointer. Therefore you might get more utility out of 8" blades over a 6". At least that's what Norm said the other week when he was surfacing some old barn lumber for a sheep shearer's table.
BTW, I recently ordered a Powermatic Model 60B 8 incher. I got it from Amazon who advertises it now for $1,069 I believe. But I called the number they have on the 60B's webpage, they sold it to me for $1,016. Plus you get a $25 discount, which I applied to the lift gate service. I think the marginal difference over the Grizzly G0500 was worth it, but what do I know?
On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 07:09:20 -0400, "Gary" calmly ranted:
$163 + liftgate service differences are "marginal" to you? That's a 20% change, Gary. I'd have rated that "whopping" and say I did well getting that and the extra 3 inches on the Griz landing strip (8x75 vs. 8x72 for the PM). And what about the extra blade for smoother cutting on the Griz?
Hey, you're pretty good at math, except the $25 liftgate charge was offset by the $25 discount from Amazon. I thought long and hard about the Griz. I couldn't see how a company could put out a quality machine for less than half the price of a DJ20 ($1,669.99 at Amazon). It may very well be, but when I think of Grizzly, I think of Chinese knockoffs and bottom fishing the market. I think of those nice looking clamps I bought six for $10 that broke on the first squeeze. I think Powermatic has a reputation of producing premium quality machinery, a notch above Delta in many cases. At least when it was produced in America.
And yeah, $163 to me is marginal, its about 3 tanks full of gas for my pickup these days.
Actually yes. In this case, the OP is wavering and has not made a purchase yet. Why spend $300 to $500 and in a few weeks think you should have gone another way? I've done this in the past myself. I know now to buy what I really want rather that settle for second place. Ed
Ah, er, gee, without sounding way too stupid, it seems to me that if you plan to keep an 8" jointer for, say 15 years, $200 either way is not material to me if you get satisfaction out of the machine, e.g., quality manufacture, no hassles, works right, works right consistently. That's about three cents a day over time (bean counters may argue for some discount to present value, but I'm a simple man). With cigs now priced at 25 cents apiece (at least in these parts) whaddaya really talking about. Smoke one less butt a day and you're way ahead of the game. Quit altogether (I'm tryin, believe me, I'm tryin...) and after a year or so you can get one of them fancy 5hp automatic feed, dual fence Swiss Blurfls, then the quality of your work go way, way up, and supermodels will be banging on your door to "date" you. Hmmm, now that I think of it, thats maybe some additional motivation to quit smoking, eh??
Don't believe it for a second Mutt. Just like everything else, there's a catch... only the really fat and ugly supermodels come beating at your door...
Hmmmm, well, you got a point, but a buddy of mine was a chubby chaser and he seemed to like it..... his point was that they were really appreciative...
Oh, gee, that's really sexist, but what the hell...lets turn it around and say a "real" supermodel were to want to be "nice" to fat, bald, old, gnarly me, hell, I'd be really appreciative!!
Dave, I used a good 6" jointer for 10 years and have been very happy with it. However, earlier this summer I got a good deal on a used 8" Powermatic. I now wonder why I struggled with the 6" for so long. The longer tables of the 8" make even narrow stock MUCH easier to joint accuratly.
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